


I is for Insect

by Jazzie



Series: A to Z of Danny Whump! [9]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 18:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8811004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazzie/pseuds/Jazzie
Summary: Danny finds that taking an unexpected dip in water does not always turn out well.





	

Steve McGarrett stood with his hands on his hips looking down at his partner, Danny Williams, in exasperation, “Come on Danny!  Get up, we’re almost there!”

The unhappy detective glared at his so called friend, “Who’s idea was it for us,” here he emphasises his point by using his hand to indicate Steve then himself, “to hike through the rain forest to, and I quote here, see if the suspect is using his cabin?”

“Mine.”

“That’s right Steven, yours!  It’s like a hundred degrees out here and you expect me to just walk in this heat, for over two hours without stopping once!  I ask you if we can stop, once!  I wanted a drink and to take the weight off my feet for ten lousy minutes and you can’t even wait two freaking minutes!  Not all of us are Super SEALs!  Need I remind you that I am from New Jersey?  Where I come from there aren’t any rain forests!  Hiking is not top of my list of things I enjoy doing in any weather, let alone HUNDRED degree HEAT!”

“You done?”

“Am I done? He asks!  NO Steven, I am NOT done!  I am going to sit here and have a nice drink of water and you, my friend, are gonna stand there and patiently wait!”

Steve opens his mouth to argue but thinks better of it.  If he lets Danny just have a few minutes to rest then he can save himself at least another fifteen minutes of ranting.  He has to be fair, Danny hasn’t complained once up until this point.  When Steve suggested he and Danny hike into the forest he received a raised eyebrow from their team mates, Chin and Kono. 

The whole team knew that the Detective from New Jersey wasn’t a particularly outdoorsy kind of person but they were all surprised when the man in question stood up and simply replied, “Let’s go.  Need to swing by my apartment to change.”

Danny finished his drink and replaced the bottle in his backpack, got to his feet and looked at Steve, “Alright then Super SEAL, lead the way!  What are you waiting for?”

“What am I…?  Never mind!”  Steve grinned and shook his head.  He could always rely on Danny to provide entertainment.

The two men walked for another thirty minutes in silence before Steve put up his hand to stop Danny in his tracks.  Motioning for his partner to stay put, he moved quietly forward before returning to his friend’s side.

Steve whispered, “Cabin is in a clearing, I can’t see any signs of movement.  I’m going to circle round to the back, you watch the front of the cabin,” once he got a nod from Danny, the SEAL disappeared silently off to the right, into the undergrowth.

Equally quietly Danny moved forward until he had the cabin in sight.  He may not be a Navy SEAL but even he could tread silently when the need arose and if their suspect was here, then the need for silence was definitely a requirement.  The guy they were here to apprehend, Kai Kahue, was suspected of being a hired killer.  An attempt had been made on a visiting dignitary and all roads had led back to this man.  If someone got in his way then he would dispose of them, man, woman or child, it didn’t matter, a stone cold killer.  Danny shivered.

Hidden from view behind a tree, it was Danny that spotted the man coming in from the left towards the front of the cabin, “Steve, he’s just walked into the clearing out front,” he whispered into the mic at his wrist.

“Copy.  Working my way round the back.  Gonna be a few minutes.”

“He’ll have made it inside by then, if he does, we’ll have a major problem,” Danny had no doubt the man had multiple weapons on him, but even more in the cabin.

“Stay… Damn!”

“Steve?”

“Got to go further into the forest to get round to the other side of the cabin.”

“He’s gonna pass twelve foot in front of me in about two minutes Steve!”  Danny had watched Kahue enter the clearing, place a backpack on the porch at the front and then start to do a perimeter check, walking the edge of the clearing.

“Get out of there….”

Steve didn’t get any further as he heard his partner’s voice, “5-0!  Hands in the air and get on your knees.”

_‘No, no, no!’_ Steve thought as he ran back the way he’d come, in order to get to his partner faster.  This could go very bad, very quickly.

“I haven’t done anything,” stated Kahue, calmly.

“Then you won’t mind putting your hands in the air and getting on your knees, will you?”

“Actually, I would,” a knife appeared, seemingly out of nowhere but at the exact moment the killer went to throw it, he heard Steve come crashing into the clearing to his left.  All thought of a quiet approach gone, when he saw Danny and the killer eyeing each other like they were pieces of prime rib.  The man’s knife went wide, failing to be the fatal blow that perhaps Kahue had intended, though it did result in Danny’s weapon being knocked from his hand as he instinctively moved.

Steve had drawn his weapon as he ran through the forest and now had Kahue clearly in his sights, finger over the trigger.  He watched Kahue shift his gaze between them and a split second later the killer made his decision and another knife dropped into his hand and flew in Steve’s direction.  With a move made easy by his years as a SEAL, he fired his weapon and dropped to the ground, narrowly avoiding the knife and rolled back on to his feet knowing that his shot wouldn’t have been as accurate as he would have liked.

Kahue cursed as a bullet struck his arm but turned to make his escape through the forest, he hadn’t counted on the smaller man, who he had somehow managed to forget. 

Danny had watched as the knife flew at Steve and moved to claim his gun from several feet away, where it had landed but was stopped by the sound of his partner’s gun firing.  Although Danny desperately wanted to make sure Steve was alright, his focus was entirely on Kahue who had already taken a step to make a run for it.  This man had threatened a dignitary and his young family, thrown knives at him and his partner and successfully killed a lot of innocent people.  Danny Williams was mad, not just, I’m going to rant at you for thirty minutes mad, but blood boiling, make a stupid decision, mad!

He threw himself across the short distance and tackled Kahue around the knees, bringing him to the ground and landing them both in a small pond of stagnant water.  The only sound Danny heard was his blood in his ears, as he punched Kahue in the face, stunning the man so completely that even Steve was surprised as he ran over to help his partner, cuff their man and remove any further weapons.

“Danny?” Steve’s voice was laced with concern.

“And that, Steven, is why you should never underestimate a slightly vertically challenged, New Jersey Detective!”

Steve huffed out a laugh as he pulled Kahue to his feet.  Blood was coming from a wound on his arm and his nose was bleeding where Danny had pretty effectively broken it but he was still conscious, if a little dazed.

“Are you OK Steve?”

“I’m good, you?”

“I’m wet.  And I smell.  That water was disgusting!”

“At least you’ll dry off on the walk back!” Steve grinned at his partner.

“Dry on the walk back?  Really?  You want to walk nearly three hours back to civilisation with this… this… thing?”

“Well what would you suggest Danny?”

“How about you call on one of your many friends and get a chopper out here?  Then I don’t have to walk back through this rain forest on this pineapple infested hell hole!  And just for the record, I’m never going into a rain forest with you again!  Never!  Nope.”

“Aw come on Danno it wasn’t that bad!  We got our guy.”

“Don’t call me Danno!”  He grabbed Kahue while Steve pulled out his satellite phone to call Chin and request assistance.  Danny was right, not that he’d tell him that, there was no way they should be walking through the rain forest with Kahue.  Once he recovered from the gunshot and the punch delivered by Danny, he would be too hard to control in this environment.

 

 

-5-0-

 

 

Danny and Steve entered the 5-0 office to be greeted by Chin and Kono.  Both men were covered in sweat and dirt from their trek through the forest but Danny was, well to be polite, he was a little smelly.  Of course his team mates weren’t polite.

“Whoa, brah, you stink!  Do you want us to contact the hazmat team?”  Kono put her hand over her nose and mouth.

“Did you go swimming in a sewer?” Chin copied his cousin’s action as soon as the detective got close and held out his hand to keep him away.

“Oh, you’re funny.  No really, you are.  I’m getting my gear and hitting the shower,” his own smell was making him nauseous.

“Oh no!  You’re not going into any of the offices.  Shower, now!”  Steve pointed him back out the main office.  Having been with him for a while he hadn’t realised how bad the smell was, until the others mentioned it, “Kono tell maintenance they might want to disinfect the showers when he’s done!”

“Steven, my change of clothes, towel and toiletries are in my office.  I can’t shower unless I have those,” Danny pointed out reasonably, while glaring at his friends.

“I’ll get it, you, go, get out of here!”  Chin wanted to turn Danny round and push him out the door, but that would have meant touching him.

“Fine,” rolling his eyes, Danny left the room as Chin went to get his things.

“You too Steve,” Kono directed as she in turn gathered his things from his office and handed them to Chin, so he could drop it off in the men’s shower room for them.

Twenty minutes later Steve was back in his office completing his report to send to the Governor.  Danny had still not returned from the showers.

“He still in the showers?” Kono asked poking her head round the door.

Steve chuckled in response, “Yeah.  I asked him if he was nearly done as I was leaving and the language is really not repeatable!”

“Can’t blame him.  If I’d smelt like that I’d be staying under the hot water as long as possible,” Chin joined his team mates, “What happened for him to end up in that state?”

“He tackled Kahue and the pair of them landed in a pond of stagnant water,” Steve grimaced.

“He is up to date with all his shots isn’t he?” joked Kono.

“That’s not funny,” Danny said from behind her, “That water was disgusting!  I still don’t feel clean now and I showered with practically scalding hot water for twenty minutes!”

“Let’s call it a day and go grab food and a beer, what do ya say?” suggested Steve.  He received a unanimous positive response.  The reports could wait until tomorrow.

 

 

-5-0-

 

 

After eating dinner with the team Danny headed back to his apartment, tired out from the day’s activities, he showered again and then went straight to bed.

He was woken before his alarm the next morning by several itching patches of skin on his arms.  Groaning he peeled open his eyes to the early morning light and lifted his arms to find a dozen tiny pale bumps on each of them.

“Oh great.  Mosquito bites from my fun trip to the rain forest yesterday, what a great souvenir!”

Dragging himself out of bed as the alarm was due to go off shortly anyway, he showered again, then found some cream that he’d used for when Grace had been bitten and smothered his arms in it, grumbling to himself the whole time.  He knew scratching at them was the wrong thing to do, so he put on a light long sleeve shirt that he hoped would prevent him from rubbing at them.  It might have worked but the material brushing over them was tickling them and causing another round of itching, it was driving him crazy.  Switching his shirt for a short sleeved one instead, he knew that the team were gonna spend the rest of the day teasing him about the bites.  Still they couldn’t see the worst ones, which were hidden by the sleeves; he had about half a dozen on his right bicep area that were already large and turning pink.  The ones on his lower arm were smaller at least.

Danny drove to the Palace, shut himself in his office and started writing his report.  By the time the others made it in he was almost done.  He might have finished if he hadn’t found himself absently scratching at his arms on numerous occasions.  A knock at the door drew his attention away as it opened without him giving the person permission to enter, but then again since when did Steve ever wait.

“Morning,” Danny looked up at his partner briefly, then turned his attention back to his report putting the finishing touches to it, signed it and handed it to Steve.

“Hey,” Steve watched his partner for a moment before entering the office and waiting silently for further acknowledgement of his presence.  When none was forthcoming he started to leave until Danny waved a report at him.  Reaching over he took it and at the same time noticed his arm, “Mosquitoes decided you were tasty brah!”

“Tell me about it!  The bites are driving me crazy!” Danny growled while rubbing his hand up and down his lower arm.

“Leave them alone, you’ll make them worse.  Didn’t you use repellent?”

“Yes Mom, I used repellent!  Clearly the mosquitoes in that stagnant water were immune to it!”

“What’s going on?” Kono asked from behind Steve.

“Danny’s covered in bites,” Steve supplied, with just a hint of glee in his voice before he schooled his features into a look of concern. 

Kono didn’t miss the glee and punched him, “Play nice boss!” Looking over at Danny she noticed he was scratching, “Hey!  Stop that, you’ll make them worse!”

“Tell them to stop itching then!”

“Have you used anything on them brah?” Chin asked standing beside Kono.

“Yeah.  Cream that I had for Grace when she was bitten, doesn’t seem to be helping though.”

“You need to give the cream a chance to work Danny and _stop_ scratching!” advised Chin.

Danny rolled his eyes having been told by each of his team mates to stop scratching, despite the fact that his skin actually felt like it was crawling with the need to be scratched.  There was no way he was going to stop without a little help, so he sat on his hands, much to his team’s amusement.

“That’s how you’re gonna stop scratching?  Sitting on your hands!  How you gonna talk?” Steve wanted to know, referring to his partner’s penchant for throwing his hands around during every conversation.

“I can talk fine without use of my hands, thank you Steven!”

“Do you want me to cuff your hands together and then you won’t be able to scratch?” offered Kono helpfully.

“Er, sexual harassment in the work place mean anything to you rookie?!”

Steve’s phone rang interrupting the continued discussions on how to prevent Danny from scratching his arms, much to his relief.

“Got a case,” the SEAL made his way out to the main room by the computer table and the team gathered round.  Eyeing Danny critically Steve spoke to him, “Hands in your pockets!”

“Huh?”

“Only way you’re not scratching right now is if you put your hands in your pockets!”

“Fine!” Danny slipped both his hands in his pants pockets, “Now what’s the case?”

“Armed robbery at Tiffany’s in Ala Moana Center,” Steve supplied.

“Anyone hurt?” asked Danny, immediately distracted from his itching arms.

“No.  There were four masked gunmen, all carrying semi-automatics.  They struck just as the store was opening, so luckily the mall was quiet in comparison to what it could have been.”

It was a sobering thought.  The last thing they needed was a crew going around committing armed robberies, didn’t matter that they hadn’t hurt anyone this time, if they did enough, someone would get hurt in the end and it was likely to be an innocent bystander.

 

 

-5-0-

 

 

It had been a long day for the 5-0 team; they had worked tirelessly along with HPD to try to identify and catch the armed robbers but had so far failed to do so.

“That’s it, call it a night,” Steve instructed, watching as Chin and Kono secured the computer table, Danny went into his office to shut down his PC and turned out the lights.  The four then left the Palace at the same time going in separate directions, for once nobody suggested getting dinner as they all just wanted to get some rest before starting again the following morning.

Danny threw his keys on the kitchen counter and headed straight for the shower.  The day had been non-stop and he hadn’t even had a chance to think about the bites on his arms, now though the itchy feeling kicked back in.  Sighing, he pulled on sweatpants and smothered his arms in cream and tried desperately not to scratch.  Putting the TV on, he stretched out on his bed and tried to distract himself, eventually falling asleep to the mumbling of Animal Planet.

The morning came all too quickly and Danny dragged his tired body out of bed.  Deciding to fold the bed back into a sofa, he realised that there was blood on his sheet.  He had no clue where it had come from  but he stripped the sheet off and put on a clean one knowing he wouldn’t be likely to want to do it when he got in later, then he folded the bed back.  Another shower was needed, so he went into the bathroom, it was then he discovered where the blood had come from.

At some point during the night he must have scratched at his bites because there was blood over his upper right arm, which was where the biggest and angriest bites were.  Vowing to stop scratching, he took his shower and pulled on a shirt to cover the bites that looked even worse now he’d managed to break them open.  Still they were scabbed over now, so there should be no further problems.

That afternoon Danny and Steve went out to a pawn shop that was high on their list for potential places to be approached, to sell off the goods stolen at Tiffanys.

“Babe, do me a favour?”

“What’s that?”

“No grenades this time, please!” Danny put his hands together in an imploring gesture.

“No grenades.  What about…?”

Before Steve could even finish that sentence he was interrupted, “No, no unnecessary uses of force!  If we can’t gain entry we get a warrant!  It’s called procedure Steven!”

Both men entered the shop and were greeted by the owner, “How can I help you fine gentleman today?”

“Save the sales pitch,” Danny instructed, holding up his badge.  “We need to ask you some questions.”

“Oh sure, just give me a minute to put this in my safe,” he indicated some random article that was in his hand.

Danny looked at Steve and sighed, “He’s gonna run out the back door isn’t he?” he was already running out the front as he started the sentence.

“You take the left, I’ll go right,” Steve called as they split up round either side of the building.

Rounding the rear of the building, Danny could see the man just a few feet away and increased his speed.  The Detective wasn’t sure if he was lucky or not but the back door opened up nearer to the left side of the building, meaning Danny was closer, “Stop or I’m gonna shoot you!”  It was an idle threat, since the man didn’t appear to be armed.  Cursing, Danny got closer and slid along the ground, taking out the man’s legs as if he was going for the winning run at a baseball game.  The man crumbled to the ground, partially landing on Danny. 

Steve was a couple of steps behind, “Nice move!  On your feet!” he grabbed the pawn shop owner by the scruff of his shirt and cuffed him, while his partner pushed up from the ground and dusted his clothes off, “You alright?”

“Fine,” replied the clearly unhappy Detective.

“Er, you got blood on the sleeve of your shirt,” Steve pointed out.

Looking at where Steve indicated, he groaned, “Another shirt ruined.  It’s nothing babe, just a scratch,” the man knew full well that the scabs had likely just been knocked off the bites that he’d scratched until they bled.  Still he’d been asleep, so he couldn’t really be blamed.

They handed their prisoner over to HPD and called in the Crime Scene guys to catalogue all the merchandise in the store.  No way would the man have run if he had nothing in the store to hide.

 

 

-5-0-

 

 

It was a full twenty four hours after their visit to the pawn shop before the team were able to leave the office again.  None of the valuable items in the shop had been from the armed robbery at Tiffany’s but it had opened up a whole new can of worms.  The stolen goods had come from multiple home invasions.  They interrogated the pawn shop owner, they’d then tracked down the leads he provided and finally arrested the pair of thieves that had been eluding HPD on and off for a year, because no two invasions were the same and were far enough apart to avoid being linked.  The couple had made one fatal error; they had used the same pawn shop to offload all their stolen goods.

By the time the reports were done Danny could hardly see straight.  He had a headache that wouldn’t quit and he was feeling rather like he was coming down with a cold, though he was sure it was just tiredness kicking in.

“Hey man, you look beat, come on I’ll give you a ride home,” Danny looked up to see Steve leaning on the doorframe to his office.

For once Danny was glad of the offer, “Yeah, OK, thanks.  Chin and Kono gone already?”

Steve looked at his partner with concern, “They left about an hour ago, even stuck their head in and said they’d see you tomorrow.”

“Huh, must be more tired than I thought,” he wiped his hand across his eyes, switched off his computer and pushed up from his chair to follow his partner out.

They hadn’t been in the car two minutes and Danny was gently snoring.  Steve glanced across at his best friend, worry creasing his brow.  If he wasn’t mistaken Danny was paler than usual as well.  Deciding that he would be happier if he could keep an eye on him, Steve turned towards his house.

“Come on brah, time to wake up.  I’m not carrying your sorry ass into the house,” Steve nudged Danny awake.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to fall…. Er, this isn’t my apartment Steven!”

“Wow, you could be a Detective!”

“Steve, come on.  I’m too tired for this!”

“You’re going to come inside, have something to eat, take a shower and sleep in my guest room,” Steve’s tone was firm.

“I don’t have any clean clothes for tomorrow,” he stated, somewhat petulantly.

“Don’t give me that.  I happen to know you keep a bag in the trunk with everything you need in case you get a call into work when you’re out with Grace!”

“You’ve been snooping Super SEAL!” accused Danny.

“Hardly!  I noticed the bag last time I had some, er, heavy ordinance in the car that needed to be removed,” replied Steve a little sheepishly.

“Heavy ordinance?  What kind of heavy….  You know what, no I don’t wanna know.  I take it that you placed said ordinance in the trunk at the start of the day and removed it at the end of the same day?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll say no more.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, Steven, seriously.  Now, you can either take the free pass that I am offering you or I can spend the next hour telling you, quite eloquently I might add, how wrong it is that you put _anything_ in my trunk without my knowledge and express permission, let alone _heavy ordinance!_ ”

“I’ll take the free pass.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So, you’ll stay here tonight?”

“I’m too damn tired to argue with you or take my keys and drive myself home, so yes Super SEAL, I will stay here.”

They both got out of the car, Danny going via the trunk to collect his bag.  Once in the house Steve went straight to the kitchen, pulled a couple of beers from the fridge then turned to his friend, “What food do you fancy?”

“Honestly, I’m not very hungry.”

“That’s it, what’s wrong?  You’re always hungry!”

“Nothing’s wrong.  I’m just too tired to eat.”

“Well you need to have something.  Will you at least have some soup?”

“Jeeze, if it will make you happy, yes, I’ll have some soup!”

Steve rolled his eyes but turned back to get what he needed to make them both some soup.  He cut up some fresh bread for them to have with it and within thirty minutes they had eaten and were cleaning up.  Once everything had been washed and put away Steve once again turned his eagle eye on to his friend.

“Go grab a shower and go to bed man, you look ready to drop.”

“Gee thanks!”

“It’s what I’m gonna do,” Steve turned out the light in the kitchen and made his way through to lock up and set his alarm.

“Yeah, OK.  Sounds like a plan,” he preceded Steve up the stairs after grabbing his bag, “Night and thanks.”

“You’re welcome.  Clean towels are in the bathroom; if you need anything else let me know.”

Danny took his bag into the guest room and dropped it on the bed, removing what he needed for a shower.  Once in the bathroom he stripped off his dirty clothes, still grubby from his slide on the ground the previous day, there just hadn’t been time to change.  Turning on the shower he waited for it to reach the right temperature and stepped under the spray, enjoying the heat as it worked its magic on his aching body.  Washing the dirt and the sweat away he hadn’t given his bites any further thought, that was until he ran his hand over his right bicep and it actually stung.  Looking down he cringed.  He’d completely forgotten that he’d knocked the scabs off his bites and hadn’t taken any time to clean them.  Looking at his arm now it was clear a few of them had become infected.  Carefully he cleaned them and finished his shower then made sure the area was dry.

Exiting the bathroom in his boxers and a clean t-shirt he debated on asking Steve if he had any antiseptic, who was he kidding, this was Super SEAL, _of course_ he’d have antiseptic!  Then he considered that the man was probably already fast asleep, as the door to his room was slightly open and his light was off, no, he wouldn’t disturb him but he would make sure he asked him for some in the morning.

 

 

-5-0-

 

 

Danny woke up with a pounding headache and his body wracked by shivers.  It took him a moment to figure out where he was and he relaxed slightly when the darkened shadows of the middle of the night morphed into the familiar guest room at Steve’s.

The next sensation that registered was the fact that his bedding was soaked.  Wondering what the time was, Danny looked at his phone on the table next to the bed, 02:00 AM.  Deciding that laying in wet bedding wasn’t the best idea he sat up, closing his eyes until a wave of dizziness passed.  Once he was sure he wasn’t going to either vomit or faint like some damsel in distress, he got to his feet, pulled back the bedding in the hope that it would dry a little then went to the bathroom.

Once he’d used the toilet and washed his hands he doused his face with cold water and patted it dry.  He’d tried to sip some of the tap water but it wasn’t having any affect and he figured it would be better to go and grab a bottle from the fridge.  He left the bathroom on wobbly legs and made his way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing.  He didn’t turn any lights on until he made it into the kitchen, not wanting to disturb Steve, it had made walking around a little bit dicey but he was familiar enough with the house to get away with it.  Once he had retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge he sat at the kitchen table, taking grateful sips in between resting the cold bottle against his sweating forehead.

Danny’s attempts to not disturb the other occupant of the house had clearly been in vain, as he heard movement from upstairs.

Steve stood in the doorway of the kitchen looking at his best friend, worry etched across his expressive face, “Hey, you OK?”

“Yeah, sorry didn’t mean to wake you, just needed a drink.”

“That’s OK, could use one myself,” Steve opened the fridge door and took out a bottle, eyed the nearly empty bottle in Danny’s hand and put another bottle in front of him.

“Thanks,” as Danny reached for it his hand trembled slightly, causing Steve to raise an eyebrow, “Just tired still,” his partner brushed his concern away.

“Better get back to bed then,” suggested Steve gently.

“Hmm, yeah, probably,” as he got up from the table Danny’s legs once again wobbled and he would likely have face planted if Steve hadn’t been ready for just such an occurrence.

As he steadied Danny the SEAL cursed, “You’re burning up!  Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”  
“It’s nothing, just feeling a bit rough.”

“Come on, let’s get you back up to bed,” Steve placed an arm around Danny’s waist, helping to support him back to the guest room.  Turning on the light as he entered he saw the dishevelled bed and sat Danny in the chair instead, “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

When he returned he had clean bedding, a pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt.  The bed was changed with minimum fuss while Danny changed into the clean clothes.  Disappearing to put the bedding on to wash when he returned Steve came armed with a thermometer and holding Danny still stuck it in his ear with little warning.  It was a testament to how unwell the other man was feeling that he didn’t even flinch or protest.

“102, well it could be worse.  Back into bed,” Steve placed his hands on the tops of Danny’s arms to help steady him which elicited a hiss, “What was that?”

“Nothing,” mumbled Danny.

“Uh huh,” Steve lifted the sleeve on the right arm of the t-shirt, “Danny!”

To the sick man he might as well have shouted at him given the tone he was using.  It’s what a parent would call the disapproving voice and Steve had the face to match.

“Er, think a bite might have got infected,” he commented sheepishly.

“No shit Sherlock!  Don’t move!”  Steve disappeared again, this time reappearing with his first aid kit.  In no time at all he had thoroughly cleaned the area, covered it in antiseptic cream and placed a dressing over it so that the cream didn’t rub off, “I should take you to the ER!”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Danny whined tired beyond belief.

“I’ll be the judge of that!  You probably need antibiotics, but I guess that should hold you until the morning.  I’ll take you to your doctor first thing.”

“OK.  Thanks,” no way was Danny going to argue with Steve on this, he felt like crap.

“If your temperature gets worse though I will be taking you to the ER, no arguments, are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good,” Steve guided Danny back into the bed and pulled the covers over him.  Once sure that the other man was comfortable, he left the room and returned a few minutes later with a pillow and a blanket then made himself comfortable in the chair.

Danny opened his eyes and stared blearily at his best friend, “Go back to bed.”

“No way.  I need to keep an eye on you.  Go to sleep.”

Feeling horribly guilty that the SEAL was having to sleep in a chair because he had forgotten to clean the bites Danny closed his eyes, “Thanks Steve.”

 

 

-5-0-

 

 

First thing that morning, after Steve had dragged a still very poorly Danny out of the house to his doctor’s office, he called Chin and Kono.

“Kelly.”

“Hey Chin.”  
“Steve, everything OK?” Chin threw Kono a look that had her by his side in a second as he switched his phone to speaker.  The pair hadn’t been in the office long and had wondered where Steve and Danny were.

“Not really.  Danny’s sick.”

“What?”

“Yeah.  Long story short, some of his bites got infected and he didn’t realise.  He stayed at mine last night and got up at 02:00 AM, when I went to check on him I discovered he had a temperature and saw the signs of the infection.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Nope,” both Chin and Kono could hear the frustration in Steve’s voice.

“How is he now?” Kono asked.

“We just got back from the doctor’s office.  He’s got some antibiotics for the infection and needs to take paracetamol to bring down his temperature.  Basically I’m calling to say neither of us will be in today and probably not tomorrow either.”

“No worries brah, we’ve got it covered,” Chin assured him.

“We’ll drop by later, do you need us to pick up anything?”

“He’s not really eating, so if you could pick up some soup or something light that would be great.”

“No problem.  I’ll ask my Mom to make up some of her special soup!” Kono grinned, everyone loved her Mom’s cooking and she was sure if anything could make Danny eat it would be her soup.

“Thanks guys, see you later.”

Steve got off the phone and went up to check on the patient.  He was glad to find that he had fallen into a fairly deep sleep, even though he was still sweating from the fever.  Hopefully that would break soon, and then he’d change the bed again, send Danny for a shower and give him another pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.  Steve would only rest once he knew that his best friend was resting peacefully.  The Navy SEAL was just grateful that the infection was minor.  He really would need to speak to Danny about taking better care of himself, the man was always so intent on everyone else that sometimes he forgot that he needs taking care of too.


End file.
